Danny Willett faces uphill struggle to make the cut at French Open

01 July 2016 08:53

Masters champion Danny Willett was facing an uphill struggle to avoid a second successive missed cut when the 100th French Open resumed in Paris on Friday.

Willett, who made an early exit from the BMW International Open last week, struggled to an opening 75 at Le Golf National which included a double bogey on the 18th after finding water with his approach.

And the world number nine continued to look out of sorts in blustery and overcast conditions in round two, dropping shots on the 14th and 15th to lie six over par, four shots outside the projected cut.

Starting on the back nine at the 2018 Ryder Cup venue, Willett opened with four straight pars before carding a bogey on the par-five 14th after twice tangling with the thick rough and then failing to get up and down from a greenside bunker.

Another shot went on the next, but that represented a relatively good result after the 28-year-old pushed his approach into the water to the right of the green.

At the top of the leaderboard, defending champion Bernd Wiesberger was having no such problems, the Austrian starting his round by picking up shots on the 10th and 11th and adding three more birdies in a row from the 15th.

At nine under par Wiesberger enjoyed a four-shot lead over Spain's Adrian Otaegui, who had birdied the second, and overnight leader Lucas Bjerregaard, who was among the later starters.

Source: PA